Thread: Felt Or Balsa For CrOx?

Originally Posted by kaptain_zero

While Glen suggests that balsa is recent and was originally used for "testing" pastes, I do remember my Dad having a balsa surfaced paddle strop he pasted and used in his barbers business (1950s and 60s)... I seem to recall he used it with black paste... probably one of those black crayons you can get from several sources today. He never bought any of these things... all his pasted paddle strops and his hair brushes, he made himself. I still remember going out to a farm with him, where he would get horse hair to tie his own hair brushes.

Were his edges any good? No idea other than he would cut my hair with a straight instead of shears or clippers.... And, for the record, he never shaved himself with a straight, but rather a Gillette safety razor and Wilkinson Sword blades.


Regards

Christian

No No That is not what I suggested, The Balsa Strop idea is old, much like nearly every idea for SR's it stated for other tools, what was new was using it to test the pastes for Straight Razors...

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Each medium that the Pastes are applied to impart a different level of effectiveness..


I can only tell you what the history has been on SRP with razors

With Straight Razors there was never any issue with harsh edges from pastes until people started using Balsa as a test medium, and that was what it was first used as..

Several years back people started saying if you just want to try a paste, try it on a piece of Balsa before you commit an expensive strop to it.. That changed to using it exclusively, to people getting harsh edges..